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loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Sunday, July 29, 2012

gottfried mind imagines a cat's worst nightmare

thanks wikimedia commons {PD:Old}

We've seen the work of "the Raphael of cats," Gottfried Mind (1768-1814) before here at the Museum. Mind was an outsider artist of Hungarian descent who was born and lived out his life in Bern, Switzerland. He has been identified as autistic based on the descriptions that have come down to the present day: uncomfortable and gauche around human beings, but sweet and easy with domestic animals.You see this readily in "Cat in a Cage," probably a watercolor as are most of his works. I'm torn on this piece: it's definitely comic and shows off some wonderful observations of how mice would marvel, if they could, and the cat's bug-eyed irritation is funny as well. However, I can't help but wonder if this is how Mind often felt - a cat imprisoned and mocked by inconsequential little animals.